...“Love in the Cornhusks” By: Aida Rivera Ford In partial fulfilment for the subject Philippine Literature (GEEN 064) Submitted by: Niel J. Baladhay Submitted to: Dr. Norma S. Valerio TITLE: “Love in the Cornhusks” AUTHOR: Aida Rivera Ford * She was born in Jolo Sulu. She became the editor of the first two issues of Sands and Coral, the literary magazine of Siliman University. In 1954, she graduated with an AB degree, major in English, cum laude. In 1954, she obtained an MA in English Language and Literature at university of Michigan and won the prestigious Jules and Avery Hopwood for fiction. * She taught at the University of Mindanao and Ateneo de Davao University where she was the Humanities Division chairperson for 11 years. In 1980, she founded the first school of Fine Arts in Mindanao the Learning Center of the Arts, now known as the Ford Academy of the Arts. * In 1982, the city of Davao recognize her contributions to the culture and the arts through Datu Bago Award. In 1984, she was an awardee in the Philippine Government Parangal for Writers of the post-war years. In 1991, she was a Gawad CCP awardee for the essay in English. In 1993, she was the recipient of Outstanding Silimanian Award for her contributions to literary arts and culture. In 1993, the UP ICW named her National Fellow for fiction. She became the director of two NCCA Mindanao wide creative Writing Workshops and two UP National Writers Workshops. As of 1997, She was the President...
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...Julia, My love I find it hard to express my monumentous feelings for you in the short scattered, conversations we must resort to. I pondered on this problem for days on end, until I thought to write you a letter. I gave it to you myself since those post office fools are not to be trusted. After finding a way to express myself I had to find out how to express myself. Please bear with me since I know you are not much of a reader. Julia, as you walk this earth our country is still young, and there is still hope of a rebellion. Your generation could be our last hope, and if you manage to overthrow our unwanted leader we could marry and spend our time together without worry. I long for the day where we have our own bed and our own room without the menacing telescreeen on the opposite wall. I picture your face on everything I see in a day. Your long flowing dark hair, your young fresh body. You have awoken in me a love I have never known before. All my life I have longed for companionship, and with you I get that and much more. You are my world, Julia, you make this barren, colourless world habitable, and with your courage we can make it bright and vibrant again! If we fail, however, we fail together, but they cannot take away our love. The party cannot reach inside of us and pull out our powerful love. As I wait for your arrivals above Mr. Charrington’s shop, I know that we will one day part, but I also know that when we part we will always remember the times we have had...
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...week’s readings I have chosen the following three poems; “My grandmother’s love letters” by Hart Crane, “The road not taken” by Robert Frost, and “Richard Cory” by Edward Arlington Robinson. My Grandmother’s Love Letters By Hart Crane (1899-1932) There are no stars tonight But those of memory. Yet how much room for memory there is In the loose girdle of soft rain. There is even room enough For the letters of my mother’s mother, Elizabeth, That have been passed so long Into the corner of the roof That they are brown and soft, And liable to melt as snow. Over the greatness of such space Steps must be gentle. It is all hung by an invisible white hair. It trembles as birch limbs webbing the air. And I ask myself: “Are your fingers long enough to play Old keys that are but echoes: Is the silence strong enough To carry back the music to its source And back to you again As though to her?” Yet I would lead my grandmother by the hand Through much of what she would not understand; And so I stumble. And the rain continues on the roof With such a sound of gently pitying laughter. (Thiel, 2005, pp. 295-296) The imagery in this poem is very rich and vivid. At the beginning I see a darkness that is beginning to be lite up by fond memories, like a candle getting brighter and brighter. I can hear rain falling on the roof at the same time. The granddaughter has found some letters, perhaps in an attic. The letters are old and brown with age. And with age paper becomes brittle...
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...Lizaveta is a modest servant girl who works for the Queen of Spades. She waits hand and foot on her lady and receives little credit for her services. Like many women who lived during the seventeenth century, Lizaveta longs for love because she is so lonely and confined to her duties as a servant. One day while at a party with the Countess, Lizaveta notices a young Engineer officer standing outside of the window she is sitting next to. Being modest, Lizaveta puts her head down and ignores the young man. For many days after the party, the young man who is later to be revealed as Hermann, sends Lizaveta love letters filled with passion and the nicest words a lady in waiting would ever hear. After rejecting his letters, Lizaveta finally gives in and requests that he visits her quarters at the Queen’s Embassy. Hermann happily obliges because he finally gets a chance to execute his well thought out plan. Hermann is the type of man that does whatever he sees fit to get what he wants. When he over hears the Countess’ nephew Tomsky tell fellow card players about his grandmother’s three card trick, Hermann starts scheming and thinks of plans that would get him closer to the Queen herself. The first plan that the swindler comes up with is, to make the Queen fall in love with him. When Hermann thinks of how unattractive the Countess is, he devises another plan. Herman decides to swoon Lizavetta instead because not only is she closest to the Countess, but she is also young and...
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...Pilar also constructs her own romantic visual of her grandmother. Pilar catches her father kissing another woman and decides to run away to Cuba and imagines how her grandmother would react to her arrival. “I imagine Abuela Celia’s surprise as I sneak up behind her. She’ll be sitting in her wicker swing overlooking the sea and she’ll smell of salt and violet water. There’ll be gulls and crabs along the shore. She’ll stroke my cheek with her cool hands, sing quietly in my ear” (García, 26). Pilar claims to have memories of Cuba even though Pilar was only an infant. Pilar relies on these memories to create an image of her grandmother overlooking the ocean in Santa Teresa del Mar. She remembers the scent of the saltwater, the ocean water, and...
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...The second marriage turns out to be worse, when Joe oppress Janie and closing her out from the rest of the community. The first two marriages Janie was following her grandmother's value of wealth and social status. However, after Joe's death Janie is finally liberated from this oppression. Later on Janie marries Tea Cake, finally finds her true love, reaching spiritual fulfillment. As said toward the end of the novel “Tea Cake, with the sun for a shawl... Here was peace.”(Hurston 192). At this point Tea Cake helped Janie realize that she reach her horizon. Racism is displayed in both novels, predominantly in the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, where slavery still exists in the United States. An instance of racism is when Huck was apologizing to Jim, “It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up to go and humble myself to a nigger; but I done it, and I warn't ever sorry for it afterwards, neither...”(Twain 65). Although, Huck apologizes to Jim, Huck still refers Jim as a nigger, a known...
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...appearances do not determine what it means to be American. In response to "Mericans", the first sign of American identity that is noticed by this short story is the classification of relatives in the style of traditional American names such as "Auntie" and "Uncle". The next thing that is noticeable relates to the young American identity, regarding childhood. As part of the American culture a couple of ideas that could be experienced in childhood that the narrator tries to avoid being a victim of. For example, the grandmother prays for family members. The narrator imagines that the grandmother is worried because many of her children and grandchildren live in "that barbaric country with its barbaric ways". This refers to the grandmother's dislike of the United States, which contrast with the narrator's view. Despite her Mexican heritage, the narrator feels a stronger connection to the United States than to Mexico. By stating that "We have promised to stay right where the awful grandmother left us until she returns". In this short story, the biggest topic that relates to the American identity is how young boys and girls are playing together and the girls are constantly agonized and picked on for the fact of being a "girl". To the point where they tried to keep up and do just the same as the boys would. In Cisneros's story, the most important conflict between characters is over their opinion of the...
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...includes: violence, unrequited love, race, class, social structure, being an outsider, and good vs. evil. The stories that have been read in class include: “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, “The Possibility”, and “A Rose For Emily”. All of these stories fit the traits of the Southern Gothic Genre. “A Good Man is Hard to Find” is a dark tale about a family who was murdered. The first example of the traits used in this story is violence. A misfit who has escaped from prison murders a whole family in the woods, in cold blood. Another trait used by O’Connor is the trait of unrequited love. The author uses this by mentioning the grandmother remembering that the misfit is the grandmother’s son. Lastly, the trait of being an outsider is used. Flannery uses this trait by making the grandmother an outsider in several instances. Such as when the grandmother wants to go to a different vacation spot than the rest of the family....
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...The Circle of Strength and Love There is no doubt that it is around the family and the home that all the greatest virtues, the most dominating virtues of human society are created, strengthened and maintained (Churchill 198). It acts much like the tentacles of an octopus, but which offers comfort, relief, compassion, strength and bonding. Take an orange for example. How it is subdivided into many sections conjoined but still sweet at the same time. That is how a family is, or should be rather. There are several ways in which to define a family, most commonly being a social group comprising of a father, mother and children. It can also be people living in the same house under commitment and sharing the same objectives and goals (Jeff 32). Under a more general definition, it can be a group of people under the same lineage or sharing a common the same ancestry. Families can be classified depending on their composition. The ways in which the society views a family keeps on expanding every day however, Emerging trends and new ways of living also play major roles in shaping numerous definitions available for the term. Some include; people affiliated by matrimony, adoption, obligation, blood, history, and economic dependence, shared memories or even love just to mention but a few. Most often confused with family is the term household, which refers to a group of individuals residing under one roof but may be of different ancestral backgrounds (Craig 99). Mostly, a family refers to...
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...Mummy and I Written by Winnie Nguyen Pham Nov 12th 2011 Every step that I am walking is followed by Mummy. I am very lucky and very proud of you, Mummy. I love you, Mummy. You are not only watching me, but also one of my best friends. When I was a little kid, you taught me how to be a good person, how to communicate well with people. You had one wish that you wanted to be fluent in English both in listening and speaking. However, it was unlucky that you could not do it because of the some conditions. Mummy, do not worry. I will do everything that you could not do it. I will continue to follow up it. You had to tell me why the importance of English was. Without English, we could not do anything to communicate with the big world in the future. That was why it motivated me a lot. I appreciate much for that and I am grateful for giving a birth to me. Many your friends said that I was the copy of you when you were young. I am very happy to hear that, Mummy. Mummy, I am still remembering all the stories and all the conversations that we have talked until now. Each of stories and each of conversations gave me some thoughts after that. They looked like the lessons for me. I never feel that it was sad or it was wasting time for being with you. Even though you are older than me, you always drive me in our old motorcycle. We had been robbed many times on the streets because we kept talking on the roads. We lost the attentions. However, you never claimed on me about that. You just smiled...
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...October 11, 2009 The Food Issue Against Meat By JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER THE FRUITS OF FAMILY TREES When I was young, I would often spend the weekend at my grandmother’s house. On my way in, Friday night, she would lift me from the ground in one of her fire-smothering hugs. And on the way out, Sunday afternoon, I was again taken into the air. It wasn’t until years later that I realized she was weighing me. My grandmother survived World War II barefoot, scavenging Eastern Europe for other people’s inedibles: rotting potatoes, discarded scraps of meat, skins and the bits that clung to bones and pits. So she never cared if I colored outside the lines, as long as I cut coupons along the dashes. I remember hotel buffets: while the rest of us erected Golden Calves of breakfast, she would make sandwich upon sandwich to swaddle in napkins and stash in her bag for lunch. It was my grandmother who taught me that one tea bag makes as many cups of tea as you’re serving, and that every part of the apple is edible. Her obsession with food wasn’t an obsession with money. (Many of those coupons I clipped were for foods she would never buy.) Her obsession wasn’t with health. (She would beg me to drink Coke.) My grandmother never set a place for herself at family dinners. Even when there was nothing more to be done — no soup bowls to be topped off, no pots to be stirred or ovens checked — she stayed in the kitchen, like a vigilant guard (or prisoner) in a tower. As far as I could tell,...
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...resulting in a lot of questions. How can society definitively determine evil, and what is an equivalent for the process of fair judgement upon it? The short story “Sorry for your loss”, first published 2008 by Bridgette Keenan, raises the question of human judgement. The story unfolds with an omniscient narrator with the point of view from the main character. In an unknown small town the prison Chaplain, Evie, has to deliver her first death notice to an inmate named Victor Zamora. As she has never seen him before, and the prison’s faith database does not reveal specific characteristics of him, she is quite nervous. When delivering the news Victor, whom seems to be a good-looking sensible young man, reacts indifferent towards his grandmother’s passing, and is contrary more pursued on redeeming his ill doings. This is shown when Victor asks if he was accepted in the ‘SORRY-course’. As the conversation proceeds, it occurs to Evie that Victor is educated and on the path for re-entering society. She leaves with a feeling of inadequacy, as if she could not reach him through deciphering his character. Or as if the adolescent boy had had superior spiritual insight compared to her. The general themes presented in the text are yearning for freedom, first impressions, judgement of evil in the sense of regret and the use of contrasts. Early in the text the contrast of free and imprisoned is illustrated: “Evie wonders if the shoppers parking their cars or the office workers who...
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...English Essay Bridget Keehan: Sorry for the Loss (2008) Throughout human history, we have looked for answers. And we still do. Answers can be found in religion, science, philosophy, but some questions have no conclusive answers. One of these questions is ‘what is good, and what is evil’? While we have laws and rules, both as religions and society, the distinction between good and evil is never precise. Does an evil offense make the offender evil or is it only the offense itself that is evil, and not the offender? These questions are what this story revolves around. Sorry for the Loss is a short story from 2008, written by welsh writer Bridget Keenan. The story is told in the third person from the point of view of the story’s main character, the prison chaplain Evie. This makes the story very personal, as the reader gets access to Evie’s thoughts on prison life and on some of the major themes of the story. One thing to note is that almost all of Evie’s thoughts are related to the prison, which creates a sense of confinement, something that ties in well with the setting of the story. The story begins in medias res, which means that the reader has no background information about Evie or the prison, and is immediately presented to the main plot of the story. Furthermore, the story contains an open ending, which does not give the reader full closure on the main plot nor the major themes. This composition creates a sense that the actual plot is less important than the themes...
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...AC1- HUM16 Reporters: Platino, Sermae Tan, Cesalyn M. “BREAD OF SALT” By: NVM Gonzales Usually I was in bed by ten and up by five and thus was ready for one more day of my day of my fourteenth year. Unless Grandmother had forgotten, the fifteen centavos for the baker down Progreso Street – and how I enjoyed jingling those coin in my pocket! – would be in the empty fruit jar in the cupboard. I would remember then that rolls were that Grandmother wanted because recently she had lost three molars. Foy young people like my cousins and myself, she had always said that the kind called pan de sal ought to be quite all right. The bread of salt! How did it get that name? From where did its flavor come, through what secret action of flour and yeast? At the risk of being jostled from the counter by early buyers, I would push my way into the shop so that I might watch the men who, stripped to the waist, worked their long flat wooden spades in and out of the glowing maw of the oven. Why did the bread come nut-brown and the size of my little fist? And why did it have a pair of lips convulsed into a painful frown? In the half light of the street, and hurrying, the paper bag pressed to my chest, I felt curiosity a little gratified by the oven-fresh warmth of the bread I was proudly bringing home for breakfast. Well I knew how Grandmother would not mind if I nibbled away at one piece; perhaps, I might even eat two, to be charged later against my share at the table. But that would be betraying...
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...SYNOPSIS The Story of Tom Brennan by J.C. Burke starts with a fatal car accident – a young driver who’s had too much to drink goes too fast and in an instant two of his friends are dead and his cousin is left with permanent spinal injuries. But the book isn’t about the car crash; it isn’t even about the driver. This is a book about seventeen-year-old Tom Brennan, and how his life changes when his older brother, Daniel, kills two people and paralyses another. While their cousin Fin lies in hospital, unable to move, Daniel goes to jail and the Brennans are forced to move towns – they’ve become the victims of a small town’s prejudice against the family of the boy they saw as ‘an accident waiting to happen’. The residents of Mumbilli are so hostile following the tragedy that they are open in their desire that Daniel receive a severe sentence. ‘They’re saying that Daniel’s going down and that he deserves everything he gets’ (p. 108). The family must move from Mumbilli because they are no longer welcome in the town – Daniel’s actions have affected all their lives. Because they fear the reaction of the township, they leave quietly at 4.30 am. J.C. Burke uses their escape as a prologue, which lures the reader immediately into the story as a sense of mystery develops. Starting again in a new town and at a new school, how can Tom even begin to rebuild his life when his mother won’t get out of bed, his father is struggling to hold the family together, his sister is threatening to spill...
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